Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a “second sight”

Re:Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a... by KingMob on Tuesday September 29, 2015 @11:15AM (#10296895)

It's been a few years since I read it, so I didn't recall that. Is it stated or just implied?

Still, I remain unconvinced of the author's depictions of a lack of consciousness. The problem is the "philosophical zombie". It looks and acts, to all accounts, like a normal human, but has no internal experience. Since I can't even prove anybody else has experience (despite acting a lot like me), what's the basis for different behavior just because an organism lacks consciousness?

I found it intriguing but unlikely, based on evolutionary fitness.

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Re:Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a... by mirimir on Tuesday September 29, 2015 @08:36PM (#10300926)

Your selection arguments make sense to me. We are conscious, so consciousness must increase fitness. Maybe impulse control is a key aspect of it. And thinking of Hofstadter, maybe it's just the top of the self-referential stack.

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Re:Blindsight: Some people who have lost their vision find a... by KingMob on Friday October 02, 2015 @02:32PM (#10320368)

Impulse control could be part of it, but it's not clear that that requires consciousness, either :)

We know that perceptual awareness has some connection to biology (sleep, seizures, drugs, etc), so to the extent that consciousness requires energy, it has to justify its caloric expenditure.

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